pixels and pictures

As granted by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, Apple's U.S Patent No. 8,988,564 for a "Digital camera with light splitter" examines the possibilities of embedding a three-sensor prism-based camera module within the chassis of a thin wireless device, such as an iPhone. Light splitting systems do not require color channel processing or demosaicing, thereby maximizing pixel array resolution.
Commonly found in prosumer video cameras, and more recently in handheld camcorder models, three-sensor imaging technology splits incident light entering a camera into three wavelengths, or colors, using a prism or prisms. Usually identified as red, green and blue, the split images are picked up by dedicated imaging sensors normally arranged on or close to the prism face.